


the kindly ones

by ninemoons42



Series: dance for your heart [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Backstory, Companionable Snark, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Inspired by Music, M/M, Past Abuse, Slow Build, Slow Burn, background Aulea/Regis, background Lunyx, boys trying to express themselves with words, emotional tension, inspired by theater, past abusive relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:33:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemoons42/pseuds/ninemoons42
Summary: Noctis spends a lot of time fretting about his friends, his family, and Prompto.His best friend, his mom, and his manager offer him solace, advice, and a lot of snark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akumeoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akumeoi/gifts).



He always has to stop, and blink, and try to clear his head, when he’s here in this place of warm gold and red carpets underfoot. In this place of mirror-mosaic tiles making up the glittering ceiling over his head, and soft warm pale-yellow light enclosed and enhanced by frosted glass. 

He always feels a little bit like he’s not supposed to be here, in this place where he’s got his hands jammed into his pockets and he still feels a little unsteady on his feet, a little uncertain of his welcome.

The person at the reception desk click-clacks their way over to him: kitten-heeled shoes, and a starched-and-pressed button-down shirt over cropped trousers, and a teal-blue pixie bob. “Miss Lunafreya wanted me to deliver a message,” they say.

Noctis blinks, and self-consciously hefts the bag of takeout food, and tries to square his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“She says, _Stop being an idiot and come on up, I was expecting you an hour ago._ ”

The person’s voice is deep and throaty and so, so far away from Luna’s, and Noctis only smoothes his face with the ease of long practice and he nods, and thanks the person as they head back to their chair, and he knows which elevator to use, and what the security code for the last residential floor is.

He could have punched in the code in his sleep: and he’s fairly sure he’s done that at least once in just the last year alone.

The elevator is just as decorative as the lobby is, right down to the constellations of his reflection, repeating and repeating against the wide slab of steel that is the door, and he shuffles in place, tries to keep his knees warm, as the thing rises and rises with him inside, up until the deeper chime that means he’s arrived at a restricted-access floor thrums right in his bones.

And the way this floor works, he only has to take three steps to cross a corridor, and go through an entirely unassuming front door in black, and of course the door is unlocked, partly because of the restricted access and partly because of the person waiting beyond that door: and he hears her, first, and that is par for the course, now. He’s gotten used to it and to her, and the beautiful grand piano now occupying pride of place in the cavernous living room that used to have nothing but plain polished wooden flooring underfoot and now, now there’s a huge expanse of fluffy cream-colored carpet and he stops right on the edges of it, and itches to take his shoes off.

Most of him, however, is focused on Luna at the piano, the black and white gleam of the keys and the stillness of her, as she plays: her wrists and her arms coaxing the music out of the curves of the piano, and her feet move from time to time on the pedals, and she’s got her eyes closed and she looks so sweetly absorbed and he can’t remember the last time she looked like this, smiling as she leans into the music.

Even when there’s a weak note or a crooked bridge -- even when she stops, once, and pulls her hands up and away from the keys -- even then she only breathes and keeps going, flowing back into the music, and he watches the gentle bob of her head as she leans into the piano once more.

Music that grows more intense, though it’s still quiet enough that he thinks he can hear her catching her breath between the passages, until she’s slowing down and the notes hold, and hold, and finally taper off into a quiet whispering outro.

He’s surprised when the vibrating thread of emotion slips away from his grasp at last -- and he blinks, looks at her, at the pride in her smile.

“That didn’t sound like the -- that theme from a TV show at all.”

“I never thought of it as the theme to a TV show,” she says, shifting to sit sideways on the piano bench. “I just liked it for itself.”

As for him, he elects to sit on the plush carpet with his legs stretched out in front of him, and her slender frame radiating warmth that reaches his right shoulder, and the back of his neck.

“Do you want me to play anything else?”

“Whatever you want,” he says, as he leans back and closes his eyes, as he points his feet to feel the stretch in his knees and his ankles. “Just don’t play anything from _Elisabeth_.”

“I don’t have the sheet music for that anyway,” Lunafreya Nox Fleuret says. “Not yet.” 

Small laugh hovering just at the edges of the words, and she plunges into something a little faster, a little more like jumping into a fight, and he nods along and doesn’t even try to guess what she’s playing: he just lets himself fall headlong into the music.

Until she’s done with that and then she’s crowding in next to him, sitting tidily cross-legged in her leggings and the Radiohead t-shirt he’d gotten her the last time he’d seen the band in concert, and she reaches for the food and makes a happy little sound in the back of her throat when she unearths the carton of spaghetti carbonara, and the half-dozen breadsticks.

“Hungry?” he hears her ask.

“No,” he says.

“Really?” 

He feels her nudge his shoulder, and he sighs and looks at her, lets her see him.

“Noctis,” she says.

“Luna,” he sighs.

She eats, at his side, and he tries not to think.

 _Tries_ being the operative word.

Six days later, he’s still hearing the sound of Prompto’s words. The frightened beat of his heart, pounding madly. The scrape of his fork against a plate of custard pie.

Noctis hears those sounds every now and then as he tries to practice and his body knows the flow of the movements so well that he doesn’t stumble, doesn’t fall, but the sounds of Prompto’s fear and of his past are more than enough to make Noctis’s thoughts grind to a sudden and terrifying halt, and -- he can’t dance when he’s been brought to that kind of terrible gnashing stop.

Streaks of movement in the night-shrouded windows outside: he catches sight of blinking reds, and it can only be an airplane passing overhead. Maybe a satellite, though he knows that those tend to be higher, to be farther away, far more distant and uncaring.

And he feels like a satellite, helplessly lost from its orbit, spiraling away.

Not a word from Prompto for the past six days, except for a handful of text messages, mostly things like _I’m tired_ and _Why do I feel like I’m about to walk into a goddamned boss fight?_ and _Fucking hell, I hate being so messed up._

When a slender arm wraps around his shoulders, he sighs and goes willingly into the sheltering presence of Luna at his side. The hum of her breath as she polishes off her dinner, one-handed. 

He passes her the drinks that he’d brought and she makes a face, and he mutters a quiet apology into her arm.

“It’s all right, I knew what I was signing up for, I just miss ice cubes,” she says, as she slurps her room-temperature soda.

“At least you can eat mostly what you want,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s still the advantage I have over you,” she agrees.

When she pushes the paper cup away she turns, and that’s how he knows she’s going to be pulling him close, she’s going to be taking him into that warm strong embrace of hers.

He holds on to her and he doesn’t sob. Again, it’s not his fate. It’s not his problem. It’s not.

Some part of his brain has turned traitor, and is wishing, perverse and strange, that it was his problem, because he wants to do something about it --

“I thought you were smart,” Luna says, suddenly, very gently.

He blinks, and his mind catches up with his ears, and -- oh. “Said that out loud, didn’t I.”

“Yes.”

He forces himself to take a deep breath. “I only said it out loud. But look at me, I’m not actually doing anything, am I?”

“And that’s your saving grace. That, and you’re cute,” she says.

He snorts, softly, and pulls away from her. Tries to sit more comfortably. The piano bench digs into the back of his neck. 

She stretches, fingers linked over her head, and then she pulls up her knees and rests her chin on them. “Okay, I know I said I wanted to talk to you and that’s why you’re here. I also think you need to talk to me. So -- let’s talk,” she says, quietly. 

“I have questions,” he says, slowly, “and I have no idea where to start.”

“Oh, good, you feel the same way, join the club,” she says.

He blinks at her. “Okay, I found the starting point, and that is: explain, please?”

Soft sharp chuckle, is the first thing he hears out of her mouth. And then a quiet sigh, an old sound, like secondhand pain, like trying to understand a terrible thing.

“This starts with -- properly, this whole thing starts with my brother, who is a terrible person, and yes, Noctis, please go ahead and tell him that to his face, because I need backup,” she says, and she shrugs and sighs some more. “The thing is, if it hadn’t been for Ravus I would never have met Nyx.”

Noctis blinks, again. “Ravus introduced you?” he asks. “Always thought you met through Gladio or something.”

“Got it all out of order,” she says, chuckling softly. “Long stories, both of them, and we’re not talking about them so I’ll keep it short. Just, let’s say, Ravus didn’t like Nyx a whole lot at first, and in fact they nearly got into a fight a couple of times. More than that maybe. You know how they are.”

“Think I do,” he says, and he thinks of Ravus’s perfectionist streak, and of Nyx’s easygoing manner. 

“But they managed to have some kind of civil conversation eventually. And Ravus must have learned to like him because he didn’t have any problems with introducing him to me. Nyx was one of the stagehands, then. And I didn’t know about making friends with him, I didn’t even have any plans of doing anything of the sort. It just wasn’t on my mind. I wanted to know how they were going to put the complicated backdrops and things together, I wanted to understand how I was going to need to move in relation to all the things that they were building.” She smiles, a little. “Nyx said, later on, that he didn’t get what I was asking until he actually saw me dance and then -- he maybe got it. He said I was dancing in the places where the props weren’t going to be vulnerable? So that he and his team wouldn’t have to be patching them and fixing them all the time.”

“Okay,” he says. She does that. Or did that. He sometimes has to remind himself to use the past tense, when it comes to Luna and dancing. “And Gladio?”

“Oh they met after Nyx decided he’d have his own company. His own dedicated crew of stage people.” She sighs, again, and this time she’s the one who leans into his shoulder, and he’s the one to put an arm around her. “I shouldn’t call them the crew because Nyx refuses to call them that. He’ll call them names, and he won’t hesitate to chew them out -- but he’s always careful to deal with them fairly and openly. As transparent as he can make things. He even asks them to look at the books. Wanna guess why?”

“Transparent. Fair. Open. Most people do that nowadays and they don’t really make a point of it unless -- ” 

“Unless,” Luna says.

“Unless you were talking to people who have no idea what that means,” he says, and the bottom drops out of his stomach. “Transparency. Fairness. Things they didn’t have in the past. He -- wait. You were talking about a specific group of people all along. People who maybe knew something about the stage. And who were okay with working around a stage, who knew something about productions already. I -- Luna? I think what I’m hearing you say is, Nyx was looking for those people, the students, the ones who were hurt by Ardyn Izunia. He was -- bringing them all together.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I was saying,” she says, and she reels off a list of names, ending with the same one that had made dread creep up into the pit of his stomach, over dinner with Ignis and Gladio and Prompto. “And Nyx would have started with Luche, but he lost him before he could find him. Luche was sort of his best friend, growing up, and they lost contact because of Ardyn, and then -- you want to talk about the rest of it? I can tell you what Nyx told me?”

“No,” he says, wanting to shiver, “I think I can figure that part out.”

He holds her, then, and he lets her hold on to him, and he thinks about asking Ignis for help in locating Luche Lazarus’s gravesite, and any survivors he might have.

And he thinks, briefly, about Nyx Ulric: workbelt and yellow hard hat and worn gloves, and his presence around the edges of a stage, always watching for the dangerous spots, always watching for the places where a dancer might falter or fall, and -- “What’s his deal,” he asks, after a moment. “Nyx. Can you tell me that? Am I allowed to ask that? Why does he care about these guys?”

“I can tell you what I know, because I don’t know everything either -- I just guessed some of it,” Luna says, in reply, and her words are heavy and somber. “The connection is his sister Selena. No she doesn’t dance. But her best friend Lavinia did. And Ardyn got to her. He broke Lavinia, physically and mentally, and then he buried all the evidence and went on his way. The way Nyx thinks, Selena would have been right in the line of fire, too, if she had ever been interested. Selena would have been a victim too. And Nyx has never forgiven Ardyn for hurting them, both of them. Even now that Ardyn’s dead -- he feels worse, actually, because of that. And all he can do now is look after everyone else.”

“Fuck,” Noctis says, completely without thinking about it.

“Sort of,” is her reply.

“Tell me Lavinia’s still alive.”

“She is. There’s a nice hospice to the west, out where the important vineyards are? That’s where she is now. That thing you do where you give your checks away to charities? I do the same thing, whenever I can, except I send the checks to just that one place. It’s a good place. Lavinia has people to talk to, when she feels like she can talk. And if not, then they can care for her. I visit, sometimes. I play for her. Sing for her. Selena says, Lavinia thinks I’m sort of like a good angel.”

He squeezes her, gently. “You’ve always been one, and not just to me.”

“I just wish the whole thing had come to light sooner. For her sake, and for Nyx’s people’s sake.”

“Yeah.”

When she finally gets up off the carpet, he follows her straight to the floor-to-ceiling windows, and he sits on the first couch he sees so she can lie down, and put her feet in his lap. “For Prompto’s sake,” she adds.

He grabs a pillow. Clutches it to his chest. “So, about him.”

“What about him?” 

He sighs, and eyes her at the other end of the sofa, until she sighs back. “Okay. Sorry. That was in bad taste.”

“It was,” he says.

“I’m not the best person to tell this story, though,” she warns, and then: she starts, and digs her phone out of her pocket, and answers it, wide-eyed. “How did you know?” she asks.

“No, I was warning Noctis, secondhand stories and all, and there were, are, lots of places where the details could get wrecked,” she says. 

“Yes, thank you, but -- are you sure you’re not about to drop dead yet? You’ve been doing set-up for a couple of days now,” she says.

“Of course you know I’m going to be hiding your phone as soon as you get here. No, that’s non-negotiable, so either come here and face the consequences or don’t,” she says.

“Love you too,” she says, at last.

“Nyx,” he guesses, once she hangs up.

“What gave it away? Don’t answer that,” she says, as she kneads her temples with her fingertips. “I swear, he overworks himself too much. I admire him for it, I love him for it. But I need to talk to Ignis. Managing deadlines and crunch time and all that.”

“Now would be a good time to talk to him, actually,” Noctis says, with a shrug. “Gladio finished his draft last night or early this morning or something, so he’s crashing now and Ignis has time to answer emails.”

“I’ll do just that,” Luna says, and he watches her fiddle with her phone.

She’s still clicking away at the screen when the front door opens again, and this time Noctis hears the clatter of locks and deadbolts, and he looks over his shoulder to see stooped shoulders and weariness, and he nearly gets up, but Nyx only shakes his head and lies down on the floor next to Luna’s end of the sofa. “Stay right where you are. And I will lie down right here and try not to fall asleep, because I hear you need me to tell you a story.”

“I’m not asking for all the details,” he says, quietly. “I don’t want to know all the details. Not from you anyway. No offense.”

“None taken. But yeah, we owe you the basics,” Nyx says, mostly around a large yawn, and Noctis has to swallow and look away because he doesn’t want to yawn back.

“I explained Lavinia,” Luna says.

“Yeah. Okay. So we just have to talk about Prompto,” Nyx says. “Starting with, I thought I couldn’t get any angrier about the whole Ardyn thing. And I was so, so wrong: because Ardyn was Lavinia’s teacher for only a couple of years. You want to guess how long he had Prompto?”

Noctis can’t bear to, and he doesn’t have to, because Nyx goes on, hissing. “ _Seven years_. I don’t know how he even got Prompto in his sights. But something happened and he must have laid some kind of phenomenal bullshit on Prompto’s parents because they signed him over to his teacher, and then they fell out of the story completely. As far as I know they’ve disappeared, and I’ve had time to look into it, all right?”

He has to sit on his hands so he doesn’t call Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto -- in that exact order.

“I’ll spare you the horror story,” Nyx says, as if he hasn’t already done just that: created the horror story in his mind. “Ardyn was Prompto’s teacher and essentially legal guardian for that long, and I’m not gonna deny it: Ardyn was a hell of a dancer, right? And he must have wanted Prompto to become something like that. But what he did in order to train him -- no, no, just no, you don’t do that to a kid. You just don’t. Not for a week, not for a month, and certainly not for fucking seven years.”

“Stop,” Noctis says, then.

He watches Nyx sit up.

Watches the quiet gentle sympathy grow in Luna’s eyes.

“I don’t want to hear any more,” he hears himself say, quietly.

“Yeah,” Nyx says.

“What I want to know,” and Noctis has to swallow and force the words out as best as he can, “what I want to know is, what can I do to help him? I want to help him. I don’t have any idea how to do that.”

“Why do you want to help him? He’s managing. Five years and more he’s been managing. Why do you want to help?”

“Because he’s a good person,” Noctis says. “And because he deserves to dance without, without looking afraid.”

He doesn’t say: he wants to see Prompto smile as he dances.

“That’s your answer,” Luna says, and she looks sad and kind. “Let him dance if he wants to dance, and don’t make him dance if he doesn’t want to.” Pause, and she shakes her head, gently. “It’s the story of your show, you realize that? Or the story your show is based on. Elisabeth’s story.”

“‘I Belong to Me’,” Noctis mutters, and he hums, softly, the first few bars of the vocal line.

Luna’s voice rises around his, quiet but steely.

Only for a moment, because he’s still choking on the story and he can’t remember all of the music -- but when he stops he closes his eyes and lets his head fall back against the couch. “I can do that for myself, I can be determined to have my way, and -- do I know how to do that for someone else?”

“You’re not Ravus,” Nyx offers, after a moment.

He looks over in time for Luna to brush a very, very soft slap against the back of Nyx’s head. 

“You’re a piece of work,” she sighs.

“I know,” Nyx says, and he pulls her down into his lap, lets her get comfortable, holds her close.

Noctis finds it in him to smile at them. “Cute,” he says, sincerely.

“Most of the time,” Nyx says, pretending to puff up and swagger.

“But seriously, Noctis,” Luna says, after a moment. “Nyx is right. You’re not my brother. The mere fact that you know to ask that question -- that’s a start, you know? And if you don’t know what the next steps are, well, we’re all just flailing along in the dark. At least you know where you need to move from. At least you know you’re going to have problems with that part. You know?”

“Speaking from experience with the guys,” and Nyx sounds serious, too, so Noctis sits up straight and tries to pay attention, “I’m just saying, you don’t need to be his teacher or whatever -- ”

“I don’t want to be,” he says. “That’s the farthest thing from my mind.”

“Good, hang on to that,” and Nyx nods, once, and he can’t decipher the odd twist to his mouth. “Just be there for him. Even when it seems like he’s not -- all there. Even when it seems he can’t be.”

“As if it were that easy,” he says.

“It’s not, I know it’s not,” Luna says. “I’m sorry. We don’t know very much about this either.”

“Just -- getting by,” he hears Nyx sigh.


	2. Chapter 2

The voices in his head are silent in the here and now, completely fallen away as the music courses through him, something entirely synthesized, like crashing waves upon waves of wind and surf and bass-beat, and he knows that normally people flail and bounce to this kind of music, like jumping in place, like fists waved to punctuate the throb of the near-constant beat.

Not him, and not to this kind of music.

He stands at the barre and turns out his feet. Weight of his legs and his torso and his shoulders centered and evenly supported as he moves, as he flows through the basic positions, as he breathes evenly. 

Slowly, slowly, the air around him grows warmer and warmer, until it’s almost comfortable.

He pauses for a sip of water, and the music throbs on and he goes back to the barre, eyes blank and staring past the reflections, and he goes through the positions again and again, until he can take a clean breath, until his heart is no longer pounding wildfire, until he’s no longer breathless.

Bare feet arched briefly, toes just brushing the planks beneath: heels up and down, heels up and down, and he doesn’t lean on the barre, just taps it with the heel of his hand so he remembers to stay upright, in the long loose lines of muscle from his neck and shoulders on down, and he can feel the stretch in his core and in his feet, just the right amount of strain as he spins away from the barre and he kicks out, falls backwards and centers himself over the foot that’s still braced against the floor -- balanced for a count of twenty, arms out and open wide.

He pulls himself upright and does it again, changing feet, count of twenty and he lets his chest heave, once, twice, so he can fill his lungs with air, and -- then he’s done for the morning.

Lunch soon, he hopes: he’ll have to knock on the door to Ignis’s office to see if there’s anything for him, but before he can completely cross the room, his phone rings and he has to double back to the heap of his bag and his slippers and his blanket.

His mother’s name blinks up at him from the screen of the phone, as does the little stylized icon of a video camera.

So he runs across the room to close the door completely, and runs back to that same corner, and he’s only a little out of breath when he hits Accept on his phone and says, “Mom.”

“Hello darling,” Aulea Caelum says, and then she squawks, of all the things, and Noctis is left to stare at her face falling out of her own camera’s view, the swoop of a view of sunlight through leaves and spreading graceful branches, and then a hint of wild pink and purple flowers fallen into lush grass.

When the picture on his screen stabilizes again, there are spots of color high on Aulea’s cheeks, and she’s wearing a semi-embarrassed grin. “Let’s never speak of that again, shall we?”

“I don’t even know what _that_ was,” he says, and he doesn’t know if he wants to tease her or worry about her. 

“Oh, it’s the dogs, it’s always the dogs,” she says, and if he strains his ears in the quiet of the practice room, he thinks he can hear quiet panting sounds, just at the very edge of his mother’s phone’s microphone range. “They’re unruly is what they are. Energetic overlarge shits.”

That decides the issue for him: and he whispers “Thanks” before he covers his mouth, before he tries to dam up his laughter behind his free hand.

“Ah, let it out, I’m assuming you’re all by yourself as usual,” his mother says, chuckling, low throaty sweet. “Are you? Where are Ignis and Gladio?”

He glances at the clock on his phone screen before answering. “Gladio’s meeting with his editor, and Ignis is still teaching that tap class, but I’m waiting to hear if I can go eat lunch with them.”

“So I did time that properly, I’m still confused by the time zones,” she complains. “All I know is we traveled forward in time. I’m another three or four hours ahead now, and -- it’s a pain, you know, just a pain and a half. I remember when I had to deal with this and I didn’t do a good job back then, so I don’t think I can do a good job now.”

He grins at her, to try and comfort her across the miles. “If it makes you feel any better, I lose track of time when I’m staying in just the one time zone, too.”

“Oh if you’re talking about zoning out when you dance -- we all do that, it’s a thing, it’s not even a family thing. Most dancers I know do that. Practice is -- well -- we let it eat us, right? We throw ourselves into its teeth and we laugh and we cry and we’re gone, for however long it takes for us to know something. To learn something. Best feeling in the world if you ask me.”

“Second best,” he says. “I like being lost like that, I really do, but -- I like hanging out with you more.”

“I miss you too,” she says, immediate and gentle. “Tickets home are already booked. We’ll have three weeks. I’ll fuss over you. I know you like that.”

“Sort of,” he says. “Mostly I miss you reading to me.”

“Did you already finish the, the things I recorded?”

He nods. “I did. I -- I practiced to them. It was a little disconcerting.”

“I told you not to do that,” and she sighs and rolls her eyes a little. 

“I didn’t want to fall asleep to them, I didn’t want to lose my place in the book,” he protests. “And I tried to pay attention when I was dancing. Like I said, though. Little bit strange.”

“You’ve got to find another way of doing that,” she says.

“Driving,” he says.

“That’s a possibility. You do so much,” she adds, after a moment. “I worry about you. That project of yours.”

“And I worry about you,” he returns. “How is your leg?”

“Walking is easier every day,” she says. “By the time I get back I’ll almost be ready to dance. But I won’t.” A huff of breath and a flutter of a frown. “At least I didn’t break it. I’m grateful for small mercies. Speaking of which, I hear Ravus is going home soon?”

“Yeah,” he says. “One more week in the hospital and then they’re releasing him, but he’s still gonna have to stay off his feet for a while.”

“Remind me to call him and tell him off. He’s going to need it. Stubborn, that boy, as stubborn as his mother ever was,” she says. 

“Come tell him yourself?”

“Oh I will, don’t worry about that. And you can tell him to expect a visit from me.”

“I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation,” he teases.

Silence falls, enough that he hears the tap-tap-tap of shoes against parquet from one of the nearby practice rooms -- enough that his mother cocks her head despite the great distance between them, and asks, “Tap class, you say?”

“Yeah,” and he laughs at her wrinkled nose and her exaggerated pout. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad for you. You were practically an expert at it.”

“And how long did it take for me to get there, I shudder to think about it,” she says, and there’s something too sharp in the words, that catches at his mind and he has to think about it and -- the laughter drains away, suddenly, despite the faces she’s still making.

He watches the change come over her and she blinks, and frowns, and the lines in her face come together in concern, this time. 

He’s sort of regretting the fact that the mirth’s gone.

But there’s something clutching his heart in sharp claws and he reaches out to the grainy image of his mother, and sighs. 

“Darling,” she says again. “Noctis. Will you talk to your mother?”

“I would if I had all the words,” he says, because he is honest with her. “And no, before you ask Luna, before you ask Ignis, I’m telling you they don’t have all the words either.”

“And if I put all of you together?”

He shakes his head. 

“Then it must be serious. I will speak to Gladio, if he knows, and if you don’t mind.”

He doesn’t quite plead: “Not now please?”

“Of course not. I’m here on the line as long as you need me.”

He wants to talk about it, and he doesn’t want to say that hideous name, doesn’t want the shadow of that person’s presence in this room -- so he casts about for the nearest related topic, and he says, “I never asked you what it was like to be with dad. I mean, to be with him, and then at the same time to dance with him.”

“That’s new,” she says, and she’s still gentle with him. 

“Never occurred to me to ask.”

“It means something, that you’re asking now.”

“I’ll explain. I promise. But -- tell me, please, mom.”

Soft sounds of throat-clearing. “There’s not much to tell,” and she’s gone wistful, he can see it even in the low resolution of the video call. “Being professional then, being professional now, what’s the difference? Back then we’d get reprimanded if we let our masks slip. And even if our managers would scold us like hellfire and brimstone and the end of the world -- that’s still better than now, you know, everyone has a camera and even if your people didn’t mind that you were necking in the corners of backstage, someone else, someone you didn’t know, might be recording you and then they’d make money off of selling the video or the pictures to some gossip rag. We had more protection back then, which is the ironic thing, I suppose, and we could only ever channel our emotions into the actual dancing. 

“We were both intense. We were both focused, because that was what we had been taught. It was second nature to him, and it became second nature to me, eventually. And after every rehearsal, after every performance, there was a sort of guarantee that we’d be shielded and safe and we could be ourselves for real. It was -- more organized?” She shakes her head, a little. “No, not that. Wrong word. More rigid back then. I don’t get to know if it’s better or worse.”

“How did you feel?” he asks.

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know any better?” she begins. “We didn’t know any better, Regis and I. And all the dancers we ever knew or worked with. How many times had I danced with a lover, with an old flame, with someone I never got to be with? Too many times to count.” She holds her open hand up to the camera. “Far more than I have fingers or toes. And the same went for your father -- or perhaps it was worse for him. He’d have to dance with people who actively disliked him, because he had such a rare talent, and a rare focus. He needed every drop of it, to partner people like -- you wouldn’t know them, though, they’re long gone. Out of the spotlight, and some of them have died. But anyway, I’m talking about his rivals. Oh who am I kidding. His enemies.”

“So that’s a thing,” he says. “He really did have -- enemies.”

“We all did,” she says. “It was something we had to live with, even though -- well it was my theory, really, that it was all artificial, it was all just a way of selling tickets and selling the glamour of it all. It worked back then, you see. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“It’s the same cameras,” he says. “We have cameras too. And we can -- be silly with each other. And post those silly things to the Internet.”

She chuckles. “Yes. Silly pictures with floating smiley faces. I wish we’d had those, back then.”

“Wonder what dad would have made of them,” he says.

“Probably he’d do this,” she says, and she wrinkles her nose, and sets her mouth in a stern line, and tilts her chin down a little. “Not really his disappointed face, is it?”

He shrugs, one-shouldered. “I can’t remember any more.”

Her response is a quiet wince. “I forget, sometimes, what it is you do remember of him.”

“I remember being scared of him until he smiled at me,” he says, after a moment. “He always had that frown on.”

“That I remember. He had a lot on his mind. That’s not an excuse, though, is it? Not now.”

Again he’s quiet, as is she -- and now he can no longer hear a multitude of tap shoes.

He can hear, at most, two pairs on the move, clear bright clack and clap, the sounds of footfall, loud and soft as the music dictates.

“That sounds nice,” he hears his mother murmur. “I can just barely make the song out. It’s -- really, really familiar.”

“Want to go see?” he asks.

“Except for the fact that you’ve left me hanging.”

He blinks. Looks away, when he realizes she’s right. “Like you couldn’t have guessed,” he says, eventually. “If I’m asking how you and dad danced together and danced apart and -- still had the thing that you had. The relationship. I wouldn’t have asked if I hadn’t met someone.”

“And are you going to tell me about this someone? About what you feel?”

“That’s the complicated part,” he says, but not to brush her off. He wants to do the exact opposite. “Because he’s -- he’s -- something went wrong with his past. In his past. I don’t know how to say it.” He wants to bury his face in his hands. “He’s hurt. And the way he’s hurt, it really shows, when he dances, and it makes me want to punch a fucking wall for him. Well he’d probably punch the wall first if it had the face of the person who fucked him up. And then I’d go and punch that person too.”

He watches her blink, blink, blink.

And then smile, strained in the corners. 

She sighs. 

“That sounds very, very serious, Noctis.”

“Good serious or bad serious?”

“I can’t tell,” she says, and he hears the honesty in her words, too, like storm clouds gathering and muttering a promise of thunder and lightning. “He inspires feelings in you. Good feelings and bad. So -- that’s always a minefield and a half. I tried to be careful, when I was in that situation, and it happened over and over again. I don’t know if I got better at handling it. I’d tell you to ask your father if I could.” 

“So what are you trying to say?”

He takes a deep breath, and tries to will away the nervous shake in his stomach.

“I’m saying: I don’t have any advice for you,” she says. “I can’t give you any advice. How you deal with this is entirely dependent on you, and on him. And I loved differently. So did your father. So will you, if it comes to that. That’s all.”

“Mom,” he says, after a moment. “ -- They haven’t invented virtual hugs yet.”

“I’d rather give you a real one anyway. I’ll owe you. And you can tell me about this person, too, if it’s easier to have that talk when I’m actually around.”

“Maybe I’ll have the words by then,” he says, and then: the door into the practice studio flies open -- 

He braces himself for the banging impact of the doorknob against the wall and the adjacent mirrors, and he’s not prepared for the sight of a wiry arm, a narrow shoulder, and a shock of blond hair, to say nothing of freckles scattered across flushed skin.

“Sorry!” 

Flash of blue eyes, flash of an exaggerated grimace, and -- the door stops in its headlong rush, in the last possible instant before the crash, and the momentum of his lunge sends Prompto reeling, face-first, metal plates visible at the heels and toes of his shoes before he catches himself with a strangled yell.

And Noctis blinks and he’s already halfway across the studio, phone half-dangling from one hand, and the other extended toward Prompto.

Who wobbles and eases himself back upright and makes a face, and says, “Sorry, sorry, my bad. Um. I didn’t even know you were here. Even if I was supposed to be looking for you.”

“I didn’t know _you_ were here,” he hears himself say.

“I -- yeah, well, you and me both. I didn’t know I’d be making my way over, I just -- I just did, I didn’t think about it.”

“Good to see you,” Noctis says, and he makes a face, because it’s not exactly a smooth line, or indeed any kind of line at all -- 

But Prompto gives him a lopsided little smile, and says, “Good to see you, too, Noctis.”

And Aulea chooses that moment to say, “Hello?”

He jumps, and looks at his phone again: and his mother is smiling at him, too, only she looks a little too amused and -- that’s all it takes for him to feel his own blush coming on. 

“Hello,” he hears her say, “whoever you are who’s making my son go red in the face like this.”

“Mom.” He’s not whining. He’s not.

“Hello,” Prompto says, and he steps fully into the studio. “Can I?”

Noctis gives in to the inevitable, and holds his phone up between them, screen tilted in Prompto’s direction. “Mom, Prompto,” he says. “Prompto, that’s my mom. Just -- say hello and let’s get this over with.”

“Hello there, Prompto,” he hears Aulea say, sweet laughter in her words. “Was that you, then, tap dancing?”

Blue eyes, blinking. “You could hear us? I guess we were really loud -- yeah, that was me, and Ignis.”

“Give him my regards, won’t you?”

“I will. And -- hello, Noctis’s mom,” he says, waving. 

“Please call me Aulea,” she says.

“Mom,” Noctis says, again.

“Not planning to embarrass you, all appearances to the contrary.” But she’s still laughing softly. “I’ll talk to you later, Noctis?”

He turns the phone over again so he can smile at her. “Call me again before you come back.”

“You’ve got it. Bye, Prompto,” she says, raising her voice a little, and then the screen blinks to black and the message _Video call ended_.

He looks up to Prompto scrunching up his nose, looking a little embarrassed. “I -- didn’t just get in the way of that, did I?”

“No,” he says, and he takes a step forward, not knowing how to close the distance. “How are you,” he says, in the end, and sighs afterwards.

“I’ve been better.” Honesty in every line of Prompto’s face, of his body. “And I’m really glad I’m not worse, today.”

“You nearly fell in through the door though,” he says, and he holds his position. Relaxes as best as he can. “You’re not hurting or anything?”

His reward is another small laugh, and Prompto stepping closer. “I did, didn’t I? Nothing to do with hurting, it’s just adrenaline I guess. And also Ignis wanted me to tell you there’s lunch. It’s in the office. Hungry?”

“Only if you’re staying to eat,” Noctis says. “With me, I mean.”

Prompto seems to light up a little, at that. “Starving. And yeah.”

“Come on then,” he says, and he can’t hold back the little smile as Prompto falls into step beside him, as easily as breathing, as naturally as walking.


	3. Chapter 3

Blare and cry of an alarm from very far away, from very far above him, and Noctis starts from where he’s been sitting in the deep end of the pool, knees curled to his chest and arms wrapped around his legs -- his lungs are burning with the desperate need for oxygen, for a deep breath, for any kind of relief -- he can feel the mad flutter of his heart and the rising urge to scream, to fly out of the water, survival instincts slicing down his nerves -- 

And he forces himself to move, slow and controlled and even, and he rises to his feet, buoyant in the water that cradles him and supports him and surrounds him completely. Arms over his head, toes pointed, fingers pressed tightly together as he springs from the floor and drives himself up to the surface, feet locked together and the last bubbles washing past his eyes and his cheeks as he looks up, up, as he breaks the surface and heaves in a loud long breath.

Treading water and reaching over to the kitchen timer he’s set on the lip of the pool to turn it off, he makes himself remember: he’s still got one more set of laps to go.

Back against the wall and a ghostly voice like fear still chittering in the back of his mind: he checks the seal on his goggles, and then he throws himself forward into an easy front crawl.

Lap one, lap two, lap three, and all the thoughts in his head fall away, fall below, sinking to the bottom of the pool, as he loses himself in the timing he needs in order to breathe, in the resistance of the water, in the repeating stages of the technique.

Ten laps at a relaxed pace, because he’s cooling down, because he’s spent the better part of the last two hours pushing himself through the water with all his speed and all his strength, and he’s panting and shaking when he finally touches the wall for the tenth time, at which point he turns and kicks away, falls backwards into the water to cool the back of his neck and the top of his head, and he lets his feet come up so he can float, idle and alone on the surface of the water.

It’s been a while since he last did this swimming thing, he thinks, and he’s going to have to think about reincorporating it into his daily routine, and then he lets that thought go too, and he closes his eyes, gives his senses over to the whispering rocking, the play of the lights over the surface that moves and that moves him, never still, as long as he’s floating and drifting.

When his fingers have gone completely prune-like he reluctantly rolls back onto his stomach and swims for the railing, and his arms tremble a little as he pulls himself out of the water; his knees follow suit as he reaches for the timer and the towel. Shivering steps, back towards the locker rooms and, next to that, the showers.

Soap-scent on his skin and he’s staring at himself in the mirrors and the merciless wash of the overhead lights when there’s a knock on the door: and he blinks, blinks, and then he just stares, when the reflection in the doorway resolves into black and red and a familiar shade of silver-white hair, darker roots deliberately showing.

“Aranea,” he breathes.

“Hey, handsome,” she says, and he sighs out a shadow of a laugh, and does up the buttons on his shirt, the buckle on his belt.

There’s nothing he can do for his hair, so he just pushes it back with one hand, and even that movement feels like he’s lifting too many rocks, too much weight.

“Think you overdid it,” Aranea says as she steps carefully towards him.

He air-kisses her offered cheeks and then points to the bench next to his. “Sit down before anything happens to you,” he says, “I won’t be explaining myself to your boys.”

“Not like babies can understand you, can they? They cry, they make a mess, they sleep and then they’re the cutest things on the face of the earth. Well. I don’t know about you,” she says, around snickers. “Aulea showed me your baby pictures. You were a big fan of frowning, weren’t you? And you’ve made a habit of it.”

He doesn’t have the energy to roll his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Dinner reservations,” she says, after a moment of swinging her shoes against the floor. “We’re not exactly anywhere near the place I picked. So we have to be going soon.”

“I’m not even sure we should be going there,” he retorts, “I’ve never been, and I can’t find any reviews.”

“And we’re back to you not trusting my taste in food.” Dramatic sigh, hard on the heels of her long-suffering tone.

“I never will,” he says, and his phone chimes at him, soft ringing.

He picks up once he sees Prompto’s name on the display. “Hey,” he says. “You got my message?”

“Yeah, I did, and I don’t know the name of this place you’re going to, why are we meeting there?”

“Because I’m eating on someone else’s dime,” he says, “downside of that is, I don’t get to pick the restaurant, and neither do you.”

“Oookay.”

“If you want to back out,” he says, gently, “it’s really fine by me.”

“Not planning to back out. Just mystified is all.”

“Join the club,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“See you in a few,” he says.

“So that’s what you sound like when you’re actually trying to be cute,” Aranea says, as he hunts for his socks and shoes. “Not sure it suits you.”

“Since you say that about anything and everything, I’ll ignore you and just -- come on, you promised me dinner.”

“That’s no way to talk to your manager,” she says, but she’s taking the arm that he offers her. 

Careful, careful, and he knows how to manage the weight of another person who’s leaning on him, but he’s never had to do anything like this with Aranea Highwind before. 

“You need better shoes,” he says when she’s settled in the shotgun seat, when she sighs and kicks her shoes off. “Why are you even wearing heels?”

“Style is all important,” she says, around a yawn.

“Even when you’ve just given birth?”

“Especially when you’ve just given birth.”

“I’m gonna ask my mom,” he says, as the engine turns over, the roar of it growing louder and steadier.

“You do that.”

He sighs, and lets Aranea fiddle with the radio as he detours around the worst of the rush-hour traffic, and both relief and nervousness are battling in his stomach when he pulls up at a familiar all-night coffee shop.

“Good -- evening?” he hears Prompto ask as he clambers into the back.

And again he has to handle the introductions. “Aranea, Prompto; Prompto, Aranea. You’ve heard of her, I’m sure,” he says, looking over his shoulder. “If she threatens to bite you, actually bite her back, please.”

“Lies and slander,” Aranea chuckles. “But then, yeah, I do bite. Only if I like you, though.”

“Um, okay?” Prompto says, and Noctis has to actually turn around when they get to a red light, and try to give him a reassuring smile.

He’s still worried when he gets out of the car and finds himself throwing a neon-blue shadow on the rutted sidewalk, but then Prompto blinks and starts smiling, starts looking a little excited. “I -- seriously? There’s a place that serves this stuff here?”

“There is now,” Aranea says, and she pushes through the swinging door, disappearing from sight.

“Care to explain,” Noctis says, and lets himself smile back at the spark in Prompto’s eyes.

“Take a deep breath.”

He does so, and at first he can only take in the char of smoking and grilling, but he takes another breath, and another, and -- he blinks, and glances over, and now Prompto is all but bouncing on his toes. “That’s -- that’s spicy,” he says, a little intrigued in spite of himself.

“Not the kind that you’ll regret in the morning, I promise,” Prompto says. “Just -- it’ll stick with you, in a good way, you’ll see.”

“You know this stuff,” he says, and it’s not a question.

“Grew up on it.”

Eyes wide as he follows Prompto through the door: and almost all of the tables are taken, and there’s a rising buzz of conversation, and he watches his feet carefully, all the way to the little booth next to the bar where Aranea is putting down a silver-rimmed teacup. 

“About time you got in here, I thought I’d have to eat by myself,” she says. “I ordered something -- ”

“Do they have the cake with all the layers?” Prompto asks, and Noctis blinks at him. “With the red glaze?”

“You really want to start with that, huh, you must have missed it.” And Aranea is smiling, but it’s not the spiky sort of grin that she levels on people who’ve been unlucky or dumb enough to cross her. 

“I literally can’t remember when I last ate it,” Prompto says. “So yeah.”

“So let’s start with that,” Aranea says.

And Noctis barely tastes what he’s eating, barely remembers what it is. He’s caught, he’s pinned, on the look in Prompto’s eyes as he picks at the cake: not because it doesn’t taste good, but because he wants to make it last, red glaze like very gentle heat and flowery flavors washing across his tongue when he accepts the offer of a bite. A bowl of golden grains in a hearty pungent gravy follows, and then skewers of meat wrapped in fragrant leaves before they’re blistered on a red-hot grill.

“Am I good,” Aranea says, when the person serving their meal drops off a fresh pot of tea, “or am I good?”

“The best,” Prompto says. “Seriously. Thank you. This is -- I hope this place does well. Now that I can remember a lot of the things I ate when I was younger, I don’t think I can go without them again.”

“Hint hint,” she laughs, and Noctis laughs helplessly along with her.

As he’s helpless when her gaze goes flinty and determined, and he knows he won’t back away, knows he won’t back down from whatever it is she’s got planned. The only way to deal with her like this is head-on, and that’s a little easier, tonight, since they’re here and she’s here. 

“And now that I’ve got you softened up,” she says, pushing a teacup in his direction, “can we talk about this project of yours?”

Beside him he sees Prompto blink. Go tense. 

“Stay,” he says, as gently as he can manage it. “I -- I’d been meaning to tell you anyway.”

“Because?” Blink. Blink. “Not that I’m protesting. I don’t want to run. But -- you think there’s a point in telling me this?”

“You might be able to help him,” Aranea says, blunt and bludgeoning and kind. “And me, I guess. At this point we’re drowning in the idea. In too deep, you know? And so are our friends. We really, really, really need a fresh perspective.”

“You think that’s me,” Prompto says.

Noctis pours him a fresh cup of tea. “Please?”

Tight nod.

“Okay. Good. Tell him about Sisi,” he hears Aranea say.

Noctis nods, too. “Empress Elisabeth, or Sisi. Have you heard of her?”

“Sort of?” Prompto’s fingers tapping an absent rhythm on the table, shoulders moving to a silent beat. “There was this stage show with her name on it, right? Um,” and he motions to his own hair, dull-pale in the lighting of the restaurant. “I remember she was wearing some really fancy ornaments in her hair. Kind of a trademark.”

Aranea laughs, softly. “And you have just demonstrated that you know more about the topic than fully ninety percent of the people we’ve talked to about this, how is that even possible?”

Noctis scrolls through the files on his mobile phone until he alights on a photograph of a ten-pointed star: it’s made of diamonds and a large, flawless pearl. “Twenty-seven of those,” he says, as he tilts the screen towards Prompto. “She had -- a lot of hair.”

“Twenty-seven?” Prompto repeats, looking stunned. “Are you fucking serious? Where did they even find the pearls?”

“Good question,” Aranea says. “Go on.”

Noctis swipes to the next photo: one of the Winterhalter portraits. “And that’s what she looked like, when she was wearing them.”

“Wow,” is the first thing out of Prompto’s mouth.

The second thing is, “Is it me or does she look like she’s sad?”

“You could say that,” Aranea says. “She grew up and she never actually considered that she’d have a shot at being a royal bride, so when it happened, sure there were jewels and fancy dresses and retinues, but she also had to live and breathe by the rules of her husband’s court. Under the rule of her mother-in-law. And she didn’t enjoy living that way.”

“In the real world she spent a lot of time running away from her family,” Noctis says. “In the stage show it’s a little different. Okay, that’s an understatement. In the stage show she still gets that problem of dealing with the court but she also has to deal with -- Death himself. He wanted her, you see, and her presence in the imperial family meant he was right there hovering over all their heads.”

“Um. Dumb question maybe, but: don’t you have to _die_ to become Death’s lover?” Prompto asks.

“That’s the complicated part,” Noctis says. “He wants her alive because he sees how strong she is. But he also tries to break that strength in many ways.”

“Think of him as the literal meaning of the phrase _demon lover_ ,” Aranea suggests. “He loves her and he’s going to be fucking terrible to her, because he wants to show her how much he loves her.”

“And that’s a stage show right there,” Prompto laughs, softly. “I can see the melodramatic appeal, I guess, even if I’m not a fan of the whole abusive lover thing.”

Noctis blinks.

So does Aranea, for all of one second, before she bursts out laughing, before she clinks her teacup against Prompto’s. “You didn’t even hesitate,” she says, grinning and throwing him a thumbs-up with her other hand. “You just said that out loud, like it was the only conclusion, like it was the right thing. And you know why? Because it was!”

“We were going to deal with it, remember,” Noctis says. “Ravus said we needed to put that front and center, and I said yes.”

“You did. And then he did the thing,” she says. “How the hell he was planning to dance the Sisi role on a broken ankle, I have no idea. I have no doubt he can interpret it. But dancing? Out of the question entirely.”

“Wait,” Prompto says, suddenly. “Wait. Ravus as Sisi? Were you planning to reverse the genders of the roles? Like, have a woman dance Der Tod?”

“No -- that was going to be me,” Noctis says.

“Oh,” Prompto says.

But he’s nodding, and he still looks interested, even though his next words are: “But with Ravus out of commission for -- you don’t know how long, do you? -- how are you going to do this?”

“We’re open to suggestions,” Aranea says, “except if you’re going to suggest Ignis, because apparently that’s not going to happen. He turned us down flat. Says he’s planning to stay retired.”

“But that would have been so cool.”

“I know, right.”

Noctis drinks his tea and waves for a refill on the pot. “So, that’s the project. Story’s stalled, and the whole staging is sort of up shit creek too. We’re out of ideas and out of clues. I -- don’t want to let it go, but I might have to let it go, the way things are going.”

“You’re not going to let it go,” Aranea says, suddenly.

“I can’t see a way of saving it.” He covers his face with his hands, then.

And he starts, a little, and looks over, when Prompto nudges him with an elbow. “Yeah?” 

Prompto’s shoulders, moving again in half a shrug. “I, I think I want to help,” he says. “Yeah. I want to help. But not like right now _right now_. You just told me about it. I want to think about it. You have to let me think about it.”

“That’s all we ask,” he hears Aranea say. “That’s all the reason we wanted you to hear it.”

“I’m not promising you anything, least of all a miracle,” Prompto says, voice growing firmer with every word. “I might not even be able to come up with anything at all. But -- let me try.”

“That’s all we wanted,” Noctis tells him. 

Prompto smiles, a little. 

It feels oddly reassuring for all it trembles at the corners. 

“I’ll do what I can.”

Silence falls on the table, until -- Aranea yawns, and laughs, and shakes her head. “Shit. I’m up too late. Used to be there was no such thing. But -- fuck,” she says, and yawns again.

“Stop it,” Noctis complains, “you’re making me feel sleepy too.”

“I can’t help it!”

“Time to go home maybe,” Prompto suggests.

“Forget maybe.” She stands up and Noctis gets to his feet, as well, to support her again. “I’m out of here.”

“No more late night meetings,” he tells her, as soon as they wait to settle the bill.

“No more dinner meetings, even, that sucks,” she says, nodding reluctantly. “Can’t look professional if I fall asleep in the hors d’oeuvres. Not sure your reputation could take it, Noctis.”

“So we’re not risking it,” he says, and he’s gentle when he pours her into the passenger seat, and when he walks her to the front door of her house.

“I’d ask you to say hello to the little terrors, except -- I don’t want to wake them up.”

On her other side, Prompto grins. “There’s always a next time.”

“I’m holding you to that. Both of you.”

Prompto falls asleep on the way to his place, and Noctis ruthlessly squashes the urge to drive on through the night, to bear him through undisturbed sleep -- only tries to wake him up, gently, and he gets as far as “Hey”, before:

“This my stop already?”

“Yeah,” Noctis says.

“I should have gotten more cake,” he thinks he hears Prompto say, as he hauls himself out of the car.

His shirt rides up a little, in the small of his back, and there are darker spots and lines in his skin that Noctis can’t make sense of, that he wants to reach out to.

He keeps his hands firmly on the steering wheel.

“Noctis.”

Prompto is leaning against the driver’s side window, which he hastily rolls down. “Yeah.”

“I know I said it was a melodramatic thing, that Sisi story.”

“It is,” he says. “It really is. If I want to pull it off, I have to do something to the story to make it make sense.”

“We do,” Prompto says, and that’s a small soft surprise. “You and me and Aranea and -- whoever else you might ask to help. We’ll -- we’ll get there somehow.”

He gives in to the temptation to touch Prompto’s wrist, then. “You volunteered,” he says. “Thank you.”

“I don’t know why I did,” is the response, around a quiet chuckle with too many edges in it. “But -- I do want it. I just hope I can hold it together and, and you know. Not bail out on you suddenly.”

“I believe in you,” he says. It’s all he can say.

“Thanks.” Prompto’s smile grows gentler. “I can’t always believe in myself -- so, thanks. For believing in me.”

Noctis watches his mouth work, but all that comes out is: “Good night.”

“Good night,” he says, and he doesn’t drive off until Prompto’s gone into the apartment building.

Doesn’t drive off until he says, “I’ll believe in you as long as you need me to. And after that, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> ninemoons42 on Tumblr: [@ninemoons42-lestallumhaven](http://ninemoons42-lestallumhaven.tumblr.com/) or [@ninemoons42](http://ninemoons42.tumblr.com/)


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